Particular embodiments generally relate to computing and more specifically to techniques for displaying information on a display screen.
Portable devices are becoming smaller and smaller, but processing power for them is increasing. Accordingly, these portable devices can provide many features that were previously not available. Although processing power has increased, what can be displayed on the portable devices is limited to the screens of the portable device, which are often small. Thus, a portable device is often able to process much more information than it is able to display.
For devices with larger screens and processing power, such as laptop computers and desktop computers, when a signal for content is sent in a larger resolution than that which the display is set at, a scroll bar is typically inserted in the content and it is cropped. In this case, a user can scroll through the portions of the content that are not displayed on the screen. This may be acceptable for some of the larger devices, but for smaller devices that have smaller display screens, putting a scroll bar on the screen takes up valuable space. Also, the scroll bars may be harder to use with the smaller devices because of mouse limitations, etc.
Also, the smaller devices may have non-rectangular monitors, which also make it more of a chance that a video signal sent at a certain resolution may not fit on the entire display screen. Many applications require a right-angle display and thus, any information that is displayed on a non-rectangular screen make it more likely it will include portions that are off screen. Accordingly, the chance that portions of the video signal may be off-screen may increase as smaller devices are used.